Happy Birthday
by GracieHartley
Summary: Caitlyn expected nothing more than a simple girls night out for her birthday, but little did she know her friend, Naomi, had something much bigger planned. What started as dinner with the girls turned out to be a One Direction concert and much more.


"Hurry up, Caitlyn!"

I averted my eyes from the open closet I had been staring at, looking over to see my friend, Naomi, standing in the doorway.

"Where are we even going? I don't know what to wear if I don't know where I'm going!"

Naomi smiled, sitting down on the end of my bed. "You'll look great no matter what, wear whatever you like."

I sighed before leaning over to choose a song to play from my iPod. I turned on Gold Rush by Ed Sheeran, turning it up and walking back over to my closet.

I finally chose a long sleeved beige dress, simple in cut with a ruffle detail at the shoulders. It was an early birthday present from my mother, given to me for today, knowing that Naomi was taking me out to celebrate.

After putting on the dress, I sank to the floor to look at shoes. The song changed to another Ed Sheeran song, Little Bird. I nodded my head along to the song, sorting through my abundance of shoes. Naomi lounged on my bed, scrolling through my iPod and switching the song to Cold Coffee, yet another Ed Sheeran song.

"He must have had a lot of relationships to have written so many songs" I commented as I inspected a pair of supposedly 'taupe' coloured platforms. They just looked beige to me, a little bit darker than my dress.

Naomi laughed. "Caitlyn, every one of his songs isn't about a different relationship."

I shrugged, slipping on the shoes and standing up, now a good few inches taller than before. "How do you know?"

Naomi shook her head at me, laughing again. "Because they mention the same things, like 'two lumps of sugar and tea' and how he loves the way the girl wakes him up."

I nodded, seeing her point. She just shook her head once more at my amazing ability to not see what was plain and simple and right in front of me at times.

Thankful that I had already put on makeup, I walked over to my dresser, picking up my watch and putting it on my wrist. Adjusting the leather band, I foregoed any other jewellery, following Naomi out of my room and to the car.

"So, are you going to tell me where we're going yet?" I asked. She just shook her head, smiling.

I wrinkled up my nose at her, sticking out my nose. She just commented on my attractiveness with that particular face, instructing me to plug in her iPod and play some music. I sighed, locating the auxiliary cord and plugging in her iPod.

I decided that we'd listened to enough Ed Sheeran for one night, going into artists and bringing up all songs by The Fray. Naomi didn't have nearly as much on her iPod as I did, but it was sufficient. I played All At Once, turning it up.

"And all at once the crowd begins to sing! Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same!" I sang along loudly, letting my hair fly about as I danced in my seat. Naomi laughed, accustomed to my usual behaviour.

Traffic became heavy as we got closer and closer to the arena where One Direction were performing tonight. Naomi and I had both missed out on tickets, our parents telling us they didn't want us to go because it was too close to exams. As it turned out, our exams had finished two days ago, so that point was moot now.

"Where are we going, Naomi? Can't we take another route, this one goes right by the arena and there's so much traffic."

In the standstill we had come to in traffic, Naomi looked over at me and grinned. "No, we're right on track. Our destination; the arena."

I gave her a puzzled look before it hit me. I shook my head, open mouthed. "No way, you didn't. Oh my gosh, you did, didn't you?"

She laughed, nodding her head and leaning over to open the compartment in front of my seat. Two One Direction tickets lay there, waiting to be used. "Ta-dah!"

I clasped my hands over my mouth before leaning over to hug her. "You're the best and I love you!"

She squeezed me tightly. "Yeah, I love you too. Now help me find a park!"

I nodded, sitting back in my seat and taking on the role of park finder. After ten minutes of looking, a surprisingly small amount of time, we found a park and got out of the car, linking arms as we walked towards the arena.

Clutching our tickets in my hand, we walked past the hundreds of screaming girls in handmade One Direction t-shirts, glitter glue and the like splashed across their shirts. "I feel overdressed" I commented.

Naomi shook her head. "We are perfectly dressed. They're going to be sitting in crappy seats far away from the stage, they can look as good or bad as they want. We however, are perfectly dressed for our proximity to the boys."

I raised my eyebrows, giving her a curious look. "Where exactly are we sitting then?"

She smirked. "I know you wouldn't properly look at the tickets."

I looked down at the tickets in my hand as we lined up to go through security.

BACKSTAGE PASS was written in bold on the tickets, V.I.P SECTION right above that. I almost jumped up and down from excitement, pulling Naomi into another hug.

Don't get me wrong, we weren't crazed fans or incredibly obsessed, we didn't have rooms covered in One Direction posters or shrines in our basements, but Naomi did know that I loved live music with a passion and that although One Direction could never beat my love of Ed Sheeran or as our friends called it 'sophisticated music,' I did love the music One Direction released for its ability to be danced to.

After getting Naomi's bag checked briefly, the security guards directed us to a booth next to the merchandise one, where we were given our V.I.P passes with backstage access included. We held hands tightly as we walked up the stairs and into the arena, feeling admittedly important as we walked past the girls lining up to sit right at the back of the arena.

We walked past what must have been over a thousand girls, finally getting to the V.I.P line, right next to the stage. We got to go in first, taking our seats. From where we sat, we could see clearly onto the stage.

After a half hour of waiting and then dancing around to their opening act, One Direction finally came onstage. Naomi clung on to my hand tightly, both of us smiling uncontrollably from all the excitement. A few girls in the section began to cry, but Naomi and I weren't the type.

After performing the majority of their songs, the boys started to answer some tweets. Messing about of the stage, they impersonated each other and showed everyone their best dance moves. Then the boys went quiet and Louis took the microphone.

"So, all our girls are special to us. But tonight, one girl in particular deserves some recognition. We've been told that it's the birthday of one of the girls in our V.I.P section, so we thought it was only fair that we sing Happy Birthday to her."

I gasped, looking around us to make sure that it wasn't somebody else's birthday and not mine. Louis walked over to our side of the stage, looking down at us.

"So which one of you is Caitlyn?"

I looked over at Naomi with wide eyes, knowing this was her doing. I was sure her Mum had connections to the arena and would have been able to pull a few strings. Naomi pushed me up to my feet, my cheeks instantly reddening. "That's your girl!" Naomi called out.

Louis grinned, holding out his hand for me while security opened the gate separating us from the stage. I walked forward, my stride giving off more confidence than I really had, taking Louis' hand. He grinned at me, leading me to a stool that had been brought out at the centre of the stage.

He let go of my hand as I sat down, standing by my side for a second before walking back to the boys. The first lines of Happy Birthday began to play and the boys walked forwards to stand around me. I was aware that my face was burning and my cheeks were probably flame red, but I just tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and looked over to my right where Louis stood.

After they had finished singing, the boys all gave me a hug before Louis took my hand again and led me back over to our section. I took one step down the stairs before Louis spoke up.

"Caitlyn?"

I turned around, looking up at him. "Yes?"

He gave me a smile, stepping slightly closer. "You're coming backstage, right?"

I nodded. "That's what my pass says."

He nodded. "I'll see you there, then."

I smiled, nodding. "See you there."

He turned back around, walking over to the boys. I walked over to Naomi and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and smiling at her. "You're the best, you know that?"

She grinned. "I try. Now what did Louis say to you?"

I shrugged. "He just said he'd see us later."

She nodded. "Oh, okay" she said, her attention going back to the boys. I smiled to myself, letting my eyes linger on Louis for a moment and thinking of how my night had probably just begun.


End file.
